Political Organization and Social Control Flashcards
1
Q
Definitions
A
- Political Organization is the ways in which power is distributed within a society in order to direct behaviour and maintain social order
- Political Integration is the process that brings disparate people under the control of a single political system
- Political Anthropology an areas of specialization within cultural anthropology (mostly social anthropology, actually) focused on the study of social and political power in human societies
- Authority is the right to give commands, take action and make binding decisions
- Power is not (just) physical force, but we’ll return to this one later…
2
Q
Political Systems
A
- Political systems are social institutions that direct collective action – make decisions for the population
- Political systems serve three major purposes:
- Determine group goals/actions
- Prevent conflict and resolve disputes
- Redistribute resources
- If you’re not related to members of your society, it may be more difficult to find “shared goals”
- As social complexity increases, political control moves away from the kin group
3
Q
How do leaders direct the actions of others?
A
- Given the problem of unanimity how does the group ensure its members follow political decisions?
- Acquiescence is achieved (when it is achieved) through three processes
- Influence
- Power
- Authority
4
Q
Influence
A
- The ability to direct other peoples’ actions without using coercion or authority
- Influence often rests on personal or social skills, on having qualities that people respect and admire (and sometimes, not!)
- Pierre Clastres (1977) “those who speak for us”
5
Q
Power and Authority
A
- Max Weber
- Power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others (coercive?)
- Mao Zedong “Real power flows through the barrel of a gun”
- Power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others (coercive?)
- Authority is power whose use is considered legitimate by those over whom it is exercised
6
Q
Weber and Authority
A
Weber and Authority
- Weber divided legitimate authority into three types:
- legal-rational authority – formal rules and established laws
- traditional authority – customs, habits and social structures
- charismatic authority – the charisma of leader
7
Q
Rational-Legal Authority
A
- Authority that rests on a system of accepted laws and where leaders are selected rationally, on the basis of merit (they can successfully do the job)
- Rulers are legitimate because they achieve their offices in accordance with law, and they are experts (does that seem to be the case here?)
8
Q
Traditional Authority
A
- Can be hereditary (monarchs)
- But more broadly, it is when rulers associate their policies and actions with traditional political forms, and the association is recognized by the followers as valid
9
Q
Cross-Cultural Variation
A
- Political systems vary cross-culturally along three dimensions:
- The level of integration, or the size of the territorial group over which the political system has jurisdiction
- The degree to which decisions that govern the group’s actions are centralized
- The source of a leader’s ability to direct the activities of others
10
Q
Forms of Political/Social Organization
A
- Societies differ in their political organization based on three dimensions:
- The extent to which political institutions are distinct from other aspects of the social structure; for example, in some societies, political structures are barely distinguishable from economic, kinship, or religious structures
- The extent to which legitimate authority is concentrated in specific political roles
- The level of political integration, that is, the size of the territorial group that comes under the control of the political structure
- Anthropologist, Elman Service, identified 4 types of political organization
- Bands
- Tribes
- Chiefdoms
- States
- The modern nation-state means that there are no longer any “pure” forms of bands, tribes or chiefdoms
11
Q
Bands
A
- Societies lacking formal political structure and where decisions are often embedded in the family; typically egalitarian, hunting-and-gathering societies.
- Small, egalitarian, politically non-centralized groups with claims to large territories
- Simple (e.g., Naskapi of Northeast Quebec and Labrador)
- Composite (e.g., Comanche of southern Great Plains)
- Conflict resolution
- Influential people intervene and act as intermediaries
- People seek to avoid serious conflict to avoid the prospect of group members leaving (to form or join other bands) thereby lowering the benefits of sharing and cooperation
- Four traits in textbook (pg 296)
- Because bands are composed of a relatively small number of people who are related by blood or marriage, a high value is placed on “getting along” with one another.
- Band societies have the least amount of political integration; that is, the various bands are independent of one another and are not part of a larger political structure.
- In band societies, political decisions are often embedded in the wider social structure. Because bands are composed of kin, it is difficult to distinguish between purely political decisions and those that we would recognize as family, economic, or religious decisions.
- Leadership roles in band societies tend to be informal. There are no specialized political roles or leaders with designated authority. Instead, leaders in foraging societies are often, but not always, older men respected for their experience, wisdom, good judgment, and knowledge of hunting.
- Indian Act band: An administrative and legal unit that manages Indian reserves and First Nations funds.
12
Q
Tribes
A
- Small-scale societies that have local informal leaders but no centralized leadership.
- A fairly egalitarian social grouping made up of at least two separate communities that are connected by
- systematic marriage relations
- associations or sub-groups that exist in two or more localities (e.g., age sets, descent groups, voluntary groups) - sodalities
- Local (Big Man) leaders, but not chiefs for the entire tribe – a system of redistribution
- Leaders rule over local community via authority and influence
- pan-tribal mechanisms: Mechanisms such as clans, age grades, and secret societies found in tribal societies that cut across kinship lines and integrate all the local segments of the tribe into a larger whole.
- The pastoral Nuer of South Sudan, first described in detail by Evans-Pritchard (1940), are a good example of a tribal form of political organization
13
Q
Chiefdoms
A
- A form of political organization in which political authority is likely to reside with a single individual or chief and his or her advisors.
- Made up of two or more separate communities
- Social ranking – endogamous “noble” groups – little or no social mobility
- Rule centralized in a paramount chief
- Hereditary
- Chiefly rule based on authority, power, and influence
- Conflict resolution – councils and chiefly courts
- Redistribution – but chiefs consume surplus
- still active in the Gitxsan Nation in British Columbia.
14
Q
States
A
- state: A particular type of political structure that is hierarchical, bureaucratic, centralized, and has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force to implement its policies.
- The authority of the state rests on two important foundations.
- First, the state holds the exclusive right to use force and physical coercion. Any act of violence not expressly permitted by the state is illegal and consequently punishable by the state. Thus, state governments make written laws, administer them through various levels of the bureaucracy, and enforce them through mechanisms such as police forces, armies, and armed forces reserves. The state needs to be continuously vigilant against internal and external threats to usurp its power through rebellions and revolutions.
- Second, the state maintains its authority by means of ideology. For the state to maintain its power over the long run, there must be a philosophical understanding among the citizenry that the state has the legitimate right to govern. In the absence of such an ideology, it is often difficult for the state to maintain its authority by means of coercive force alone.
- Made up of a number of regional communities
- Political rule is not based on kinship and occurs through a centralized bureaucracy with at least three levels of administration
- community, district, and central governments
- nation-state: A socio-cultural entity as well as a political community that has legitimacy over a defined territory.
- States:
- make and enforce laws and policies
- have monopoly on legitimate violence
- impose and collect taxes
- can mobilize labour (public works, military actions)
- manage foreign relations
15
Q
Political Structures
A
- acephalous societies: Societies that have no political leaders such as a presidents, kings, or chiefs.
- autocratic state: A form of government controlled by a leader who holds absolute power and denies popular participation in decision making.
- totalitarian state: A political system in which the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.
- representative democracy: A form of government in which power rests with the citizens, who periodically elect members of their society to some form of assembly to represent them in decision making.
- dictatorship: A nation-state in which one individual holds power.
- monarchy: A form of nation-state in which the power rests with a single individual or family within which power is inherited.
- theocracy: A nation-state in which ultimate power rests with a deity or God.
